Fluff

Okay, I'm up against deadline, I'm tired, I need to lay down, so I'm going to write about just about what's happening and postpone the longer, issue-oriented article.

Fluff actually refers to my cat, who as you have seen, is a sweet, delightful little long-haired creature, who has issues. Anyway, I was watching a WWI documentary on youtube, The Great War. She was in my lap, I was petting her, she squirming with delight and squinting with affection. Things couldn't have been better.

Then, she has one of her spontaneous panic episodes. He claws came out in every direction. Where I had been holding this warm ball of fuzz, now it had moving thorns. She wasn't scratching at me, she was trying to gain traction and run away. Part of the traction she gained was in my throat.



Then I panicked. I threw her off me. That plucked the claws right out like feathers from a fowl, or maybe a hook from a fish. I went to the mirror, and couldn't see any marks. I put some Neosporin on the stinging points.

It wasn't visible last night, but today it looks like I have hickey, or maybe a cluster of midlife acne. She also got me in the chest and in the belly.

I looked around and noticed my bathroom is a disgrace, and not because I'm a slob, either. I spent last winter keeping the bathroom furnace vent closed, because so much grime blew out of the vent that I decided it would be better to just no heat my bathroom. This year, I decided I wanted my bathroom with heat. I opened the vent to let the dust blow out and when it was done, I'd just sweep it all up.

However, the soot and grime kept coming and never got better. So, put in a maintenance request. They sent over the duct cleaner (in the Middle Ages they called them "ductors") he swept it out, and the first time the furnace starts, it is worse than ever. The bathroom looks like like nuclear holocaust with fallout all over everything. I didn't sweep it out today because I've been too busy writing my novel. Vents closed again. Time for plan C.

The novel, the final draft of Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond I'm finishing the fourth chapter. I've realized: it is going to be much shorter than the previous draft, probably drastically shorter. That's a good thing, because that draft is over 200,000 words long. I've realized that I can develop as much plot with this one scene as I did with four scenes. Not everything compresses like that, I'm afraid, but that helps.

It might have three characters from Ginger Snaps, but the protagonist is all mine. I wanted to start out with somebody who really wasn't the action hero sort, and I succeeded. She's short, too busty, has a terribly high voice, and she's mentally ill, recovering from a psychotic break so extreme she thought her sister was a terrorist and tried to stab her. So are the other twenty or more characters. I'm having a great time writing it, again.

Anyway, I'm now totally worn. I'm going to lay down. However, since this is the Internet, and I started this entry about my cat, I'll show you her happy and sad.

Happy:

Natural habitat: a cardboard box in a nerd's living room.

Sad:

I want my lawyer.

Anyway, I've met deadline. She's sleeping on my bed now. Time to move her out of the way for a cat nap of my own.